A Squirrel, a Forest, and a Necklace
by YuShaJi
Summary: Himari decides to help an acquaintance with searching for a lost necklace. She ends up finding more than she expected. Takes place during Episode 21.


Timeframe: Episode 21, after the intro scene but before the scene that comes after the opening and title card

Himari sighed. She was currently coming back from the shopping district, having gone there to buy some more fruits for the KiraKira Patisserie in the middle of the day. There was no rush to head back, though. Due to Ciel opening her new store, the KiraPati didn't have as many people as it used to, and today was no exception. In fact, there seemed to be even less people today than there were the previous day. That was probably to be expected, Himari figured; yesterday, she, Ichika, and Aoi went around the town interviewing Ciel and even made a stop at a local bee farm where Ciel and Ichika competed in a pancake-making contest. Ichika's pancakes were by no means bad, but Ciel completely stole the show, ensuring that another group of interested customers would make a beeline for her shop the following day. Himari was glad that Ciel and Ichika were still able to act friendly towards each other even though Ichika failed to become Ciel's apprentice, although a little part of her couldn't help but be envious of Ciel. She was a girl no older than herself, Ichika, and Aoi, and yet her skill and experience with working with sweets would probably be enough to make other adults jealous. There was probably a mountain's worth of knowledge behind those star-shaped pupils and more than once Himari had a burning desire to walk up to her store, sit down, and demand that the young patissiere divulge her secrets. Of course, given what happened with Ichika, Himari figured it would probably be best if she kept those thoughts to herself to keep her from embarrassing herself.

Just as she was thinking about this, her ears perked up like a squirrel as she heard something that sounded like a little girl crying. Deciding that she had enough time to spare, she headed towards the direction of sound, eventually coming across a little girl who was crawling on the floor searching for something.

Himari smiled to herself, recognizing the girl as someone she knew. She walked over to her and politely asked: "Excuse me? Is there something wrong?"

The girl tearfully looked up before her eyes widened with surprise. "Ah! It's the smart lady!"

Himari giggled. "Yes, that's me!" Her suspicions were correct; this was the girl who the Cures rescued alongside her mother after Julio stole their kirakiraru. Since then, she and her mother have become frequent visitors of the KiraPati, with the little girl often asking Himari about how some of the sweets on display were made. Her mother would repeatedly apologize to Himari for getting in the way of her work, but Himari didn't mind. In fact, she had grown rather fond of the little girl, as it was thanks to their first interaction about how churros were made that Himari started to be more confident in herself. "You look like you're looking for something. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Well…" The girl got up from the ground and dusted her legs. "I'm looking for a necklace."

"A necklace?"

The girl nodded. "We made necklaces in class today and I wanted to give mine to Mama. I was on my way to give it to her when I saw something floating and glowing."

"Floating and glowing?" Himari frowned. "What could that be?"

"I don't know, but they were floating and glowing blue! They went into the alley over there." The girl pointed towards an alley. "I put my necklace my down and went to look for them but I couldn't find them, so I went back to where I put the necklace, but now it's gone!" The girl started to tear up. "I know I shouldn't have done that. Mama's always told me to look after my things, but I thought it would be okay if I looked away for a little bit. Uuu…"

Himari patted the girl on the head. "D-don't worry, I'm sure someone around the shopping district just found it and is keeping it for safety. Say, would you mind if I tried looking for it?"

That got the girl's attention. "R-really? You'd help me look for it?"

Himari smiled and nodded. "Sure! Well, I still need to drop these off at the store…" Himari looked at the bags of fruit she was still holding. "...but once I do I'll get straight to looking for it! Is that okay?"

The girl could barely contain herself. "Thank you, Miss Himari!"

Himari scratched her cheek, a little embarrassed. "Now I HAVE to find this necklace," Himari thought to herself. "This little girl is depending on me! Although, I hope the others are okay with me doing this…"

*Scene change*

The girl and Himari agreed to meet back up in an hour before Himari rushed to the KiraPati to drop off the ingredients and tell everyone about what happened. Fortunately, the other girls had no issues with Himari lending the girl a hand and assured her that they would look after the store with no trouble. With her friends' approval, Himari quickly changed from her work clothes to more casual clothes and stepped out of the KiraPati. The little Sweets Professor began to think to herself. "Now where would a necklace go…"

Just as she thought those words, she heard something rustling in the bushes. Curious, she went over to the bush and moved the leaves around to find...

"Yo. It's been a long time-pulu."

"E-eh?!" Himari jumped with surprise.

The small yellow creature that appeared before her hovered out of the bushes. "Looks like you still get scared pretty easily, eh-pulu? I guess some things never change-pulu…"

Himari took a moment to recompose herself before looking at the creature more carefully. Her eyes then widened. "Wait a minute, y-you're…!"

It was Pulupulu, a former member of a group of fairies called the Kirakiraru Thieves who had been put under Julio's mind control. The group hadn't been heard of since, though Himari remembered Pulupulu especially as it was because of him that she became Cure Custard. "Why are you here?" Himari asked, her hand instinctively reaching towards her Sweets Pact. "C-could you be trying to steal the kirakiraru again?"

The yellow fairy sighed and shook his head. "Did you forget that I was brainwashed-pulu? I'm not interested in taking away kirakiraru anymore-pulu. Besides, I've been busy with other things-pulu."

Himari raised an eyebrow. "What 'other things'?"

Pulupulu waved his hands. "Nothing you need worrying about-pulu. So, you were talking about a necklace?"

Himari blinked. "Oh, that's right! I need to go look for that girl's necklace! I hope I still have time…"

"What does it look like-pulu?"

"Huh? Um…" Himari tried to recall the girl's description of the necklace. "There's a shiny rock in the middle with beads on either side of it, and they're all strung onto a piece of leather string."

Pulupulu nodded. "Okay-pulu." He then turned around. "This way-pulu."

"W-what?" Himari was confused. "Do you know where it is?"

"I don't know if it's what you're looking for, but I remember seeing something that was out of place over this way-pulu." Pulupulu motioned for Himari to follow him. "Are you coming or not-pulu?"

Himari waited for a moment. Was it a trap? If so, then the logical thing to do would be to run back to the KiraPati and warn the others. However, she didn't feel any animosity from the yellow fairy, and Pulupulu, for whatever reason, genuinely looked like he wanted to help. Himari looked to the KiraPati to make sure no one was watching her before nodding. "O-okay. Lead the way."

*Another scene change*

"Is that it-pulu?"

Himari squinted, looking at the necklace hanging from a tree branch. "I think it is…"

Pulupulu had lead Himari into the forest of Ichigo Mountain, where they were now standing underneath a tall tree. Apparently, Pulupulu had been looking for a place to take a nap and decided to sleep in this tree, unaware that he was only a few inches away from a bird's nest. The bird immediately started retaliating and in the commotion that ensued, Pulupulu noticed something shiny fall from the bird's nest. He flew down to find a necklace that, as luck would have it, matched the description of the little girl's gift to her mother.

"That rock must have caught the bird's eye-pulu. Birds do like shiny objects-pulu."

"I-it's rather high up." Himari noted. "I don't think I can climb that high, and even if I transform I don't think the branch could hold me…"

Pulupulu sighed. "I'll handle it-pulu." He flew up to the necklace, picked it up from the branch, flew back down, and handed the necklace over to Himari with a grunt.

Himari took the necklace and examined it. Judging from the quality of the necklace, it was clearly made by a child no older than the little girl and with materials one could find in an art classroom. However, Himari could feel the heart that was put into making this and she found herself smiling. "Thank you," she said to Pulupulu. "You saved me a lot of time trying to find this. I'm sure that girl would be happy to see this."

The yellow fairy snorted and pushed his head to the side. "I-it's not like I'm doing this for the sake of being nice or anything-pulu! I just feel like I need to help so I can make amends is all-pulu."

Himari tilted her head. "Make amends?"

"W-well, I did some pretty bad things a while back, but then you Pretty Cure saved me, Gummy and the others from that masked boy-pulu. This is the least I could do to repay you-pulu." Pulupulu then whispered to himself: "Not to mention we've been going around trying to find all the other fairies…"

"Huh? What was that last part?"

"It's nothing-pulu! Anyway, you have the necklace right-pulu? You should go give it to...whoever it is you're giving it to-pulu! I'm out!" And with that, Pulupulu bounced away.

"Uh, hey! Wait!" Himari tried to call him to stop, but to no avail. "Well, there he goes. Still, I wonder why he's shown up now after all this time? Wait…" She put a finger to her chin. "If he's here, then does that mean the other Kirakiraru Thieves are back as well? But then again, he didn't do anything to hurt me, and he did say that he was sorry. I wonder if I should tell the others…"

Himari quickly dismissed the thought, remembering that she still had an important job to do. She ran towards Ichigozaka in hopes of finding the little girl and giving back her necklace.

Little did she know that her day was about to get a lot more interesting…

* * *

 **Author's note: So on this mobile app called "Amino", there was an event in the Pretty Cure community where there were Weekly Prompts based around a Cure, a location, and an object. This is the first of three prompts that I did for that event, and as the title indicates, the prompts were Cure Custard, a forest, and a necklace. Since these were basically fanfiction, I figured "Why not post them online to see what other people think?" May upload the other two at a later time if I feel like it.**


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